For some years now, many attempts have been made to harness the popularity and nearly addictive properties of computer and video training exercises for the purpose of training and education. Since arcade and home style video training exercises are generally controlled by one form or another of an electronic computer, all such training exercises, including those played using a general purpose computer, are referred to herein as computer training exercises. Computer training exercises have the advantage that the challenge itself is interesting to the user. For example, if the user is challenged to use user input devices to shoot and kill space aliens, the act of shooting and killing the space aliens is, for certain users, fun per se. In general, computer training exercises present a simulated threat to the user and give the user a simulated defense or weapon to overcome the simulated threat. Such tends to challenge the competitive spirit of the user and motivate the user to overcome the simulated threat.
Other computer training exercises simulate a direct competition between the user and a simulated or actual opponent. Such training exercises include racing and fighting training exercises in which the user respectively controls a vehicle to race an opponent's vehicle through a race course or controls a fighting character to fight an opposing fighting character using user input devices. The opposing vehicle or fighting character can be controlled by the computer or by another user. These training exercises also challenge the competitive spirit of the user and motivate the user to out-perform the simulated or actual opponent.
Training programs typically include repetitive exercises to improve certain skills or cognitive abilities of the user. Some computer-based training programs use the simulated threat paradigm of computer training exercises to motivate the user to perform such repetitive training exercises. For example, the PalmPilot digital personal organizer available from US Robotics, Inc. of Skokie, Ill., includes a training process which teaches the user to use a special alphabet that the PalmPilot digital personal organizer can recognize through a touch-sensitive pad. In this training exercise, letters and numbers move down the screen, apparently at the user, to form a simulated threat. In response, the user can simulate destruction of the threatening letters and numbers by writing the threatening letters and numbers using the touch-sensitive pad. By presenting the user with a simulated threat and incorporating a training exercise into a simulated defense or weapon, the user can be motivated to perform the training exercise repeatedly. Such a training program can be relatively effective if the training exercise is readily adaptable to a simulated defense or weapon and the skills improved by the training exercise are relatively simple.
Certain training exercises do not lend themselves as readily to the threat/defense training exercise paradigm described above. For example, some training exercises are not so readily adapted to a simulated defense or weapon. An example of such a training exercise is the recognition of a language phoneme by the user, e.g., distinguishing "shu" from "chu." In addition, some training programs are so long, e.g., more than one hour per day for several weeks, that even the threat/defense training exercise paradigm loses its motivation efficacy.
A particularly helpful computer-based training program is described in the above-referenced patent applications and patent and further in the Training Patent. The described training program involves student participation for more than one hour per day, at least five (5) days per week, for eight (8) weeks. Such a program is long and maintaining interest and motivation in the various training exercises over such a long program is of particular importance. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the users of the described computer-based training program are children. In addition, the objects of the training exercise are language-oriented in nature and therefore do not lend themselves to simulated weapons actuation as compared to relatively simple motor skills, e.g., typing, which are more relatively readily adaptable to simulated weapons actuation. What is therefore needed is a system for maintaining interest and motivation in the training exercises over the entire training program.